


And since we’ve no place to go

by Paeonia



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas, F/M, Getting to Know Each Other, Office
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-07 04:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8782519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paeonia/pseuds/Paeonia
Summary: It's Peggy and Daniel's first Christmas back from war, and their first time staffing an off shift together.Canon-compliant (but also Quo Vadis compliant)





	

 

 

 

 _December 23, 1945_  

 

It was the beginning of the evening shift on the Sunday before Christmas, and any spirit of Christmas cheer that Sousa might have had was swiftly circling the drain. Thompson had finished his day shift and had given report, but he would not leave. He dawdled and hemmed and hawed and asked questions until Sousa finally lost patience and asked if he’d missed his bus. 

Thompson forced a chuckle. “No, I’d hate to be waiting for a bus in that weather. Has it made up its mind whether it’s going to snow or sleet?” 

“Your guess is as good as ours, Agent Thompson,” said Carter. “It’s been quite some time now since Agent Sousa and I arrived to start our shift.” 

“Just want to make sure your shift's off to a good start, that's all.” 

“We’re fine,” said Sousa. “I have plenty of experience on the off shifts, remember? And Agent Carter’s covered weekends before.” 

“All right, then,” said Thompson. He got up from his seat on Yauch’s desk and put on his hat. “Corcoran’s first on the call list if you need anything.” 

“Good night, Agent Thompson,” said Carter. She waited until he was safely in the elevator before she came and stood next to Sousa’s desk.  

“Finally. I thought he’d never leave,” she said. “So what do I really need to know about the evening shift?”  

Sousa gestured to the chair beside his desk, and Carter sat down. “It’s not normally this dead this early,” he said. “But still, usually the first thing we do is figure out dinner….”  

“Ah. You're frequently scheduled with Agent  Krzeminski, I believe?”  

Sousa chuckled. “Well, he does have a point: get something early before everything around here closes and while there's still other —“ he caught himself before he said   _guys — “_ agents around. Trouble is, everything's closed today too. I picked something up on the way over….” Uh-oh — was she going to have anything for dinner? — he had a sandwich and an apple, that would be easy to split —  

She nodded. “So did I. What else?”  

"The papers usually come around 4:30 — switchboard sends them up in the tube. Nobody's in the field, so no check-ins to worry about tonight; just keep the log, answer the phone, and that's about it ."  

"Right. Well, let's get to it, then." She stood up and went back to her own desk. Sousa was amused to notice that her out-box was already running over: she was behind on her filing. He unlocked his desk and pulled out his first file.  

Only then did it sink in: for the next eight hours, it was going to be just him and Agent Carter.  

Well, that would be... interesting. Different, certainly.  

He set to work, but every so often his mind drifted off to the second desk behind him. Agent Carter had been at the New York office for around six weeks now, and though they'd spoken to and been friendly to each other, he'd never really carried on an actual conversation with her. There'd never been a reason or an opportunity, they'd never been assigned to work together.  

Of course, they didn't have to carry on any kind of conversation at all. They could spend the whole shift with their faces pointed at their desks, only talking if something came up.  

He hoped not. Peggy Carter seemed like an interesting person. He liked the idea of their talking to each other.  

As he worked his way through his file, part of his mind kept considering and putting aside possible topics.   _Sports_? Unlikely. She was English and she was a woman; she might know about American sports, but did she really follow them? There wasn't much happening besides hockey right now anyway, and the Rangers were having a terrible season.  

 _The weather?_ Boring _._ _Where are you from?_ Too personal.   _How do you like New York?_ Also too personal, and not a cheerful topic; his own answer to that question, if he was honest, would be _Less and less every day._   

 _What are you doing for Christmas?_ Too personal. 

 _What did you do in the war_? No way. Far too heavy a question, and between her being SSR and the business with Captain America... it might be either too secret or too painful.  

Nobody here had ever asked him what he did in the war.  

He capped his pen at 4:23. The afternoon papers were going to be coming soon, and he liked having a cup of coffee when he read them. He stood up and started over to the coffee pot.  

"Carter," he said, "I'm going to make some coffee. You want some?"  

She seemed almost surprised. "...Yes, please," she said.   

Seven minutes later, the percolator was just finishing its chuckling song as a hiss and a thump sounded in the tube chamber.  

"Perfect timing," said Agent Carter. "What do you say to moving to the briefing room? I'll bring the coffee if you bring the papers."  

"It's a plan," said Sousa. And in a few minutes, they were sitting across the briefing table from each other, with two cups of coffee and a stack of newspapers spread out between them. As Carter poured cream in her coffee, Sousa suddenly felt stupid — maybe she would have liked tea better? Didn't English people like tea in the afternoon?  

She stirred her coffee and looked up. "Hm? ...You looked like you were about to say something?"  

"I was just thinking — maybe you would have liked tea better."  

"That's very kind. But there's something to be said for the American coffee break, and I appreciate the invitation. Cream and sugar?"  

"No thanks."  

"Then let's see what the   _Bulletin_ has for us today...."  

They read through the papers, looking for trends in the news stories or suspicious ads in the classifieds. There wasn't much to look through; it was a slow news day, and the papers were filling up space with human interest stories, pictures of Allied soldiers building snowmen in Germany and putting up Christmas trees in Japan.  By the time he got to his third paper, Sousa was getting bored.  

"Ooo, news flash: ‘Local Boy Home in Time for Christmas’," he read.  

"Hm?" Carter looked up from the Brooklyn paper; Sousa was struck by the serious expression on her face.  

"Another one?" she said. "Let me guess: He'll miss his buddies but he’s glad to be home, he's looking forward to a big plate of his mother's cooking, and there's a photo of him in his uniform hugging his granny on the front porch of a house in Queens, with a younger sibling tugging on his uniform coat."  

"This one's Staten Island, but otherwise you nailed it." 

"Well, at least it's somewhat newsworthy." She turned the page. "I’ve just got another photograph of an adorable child with Santa Claus. Really, how is this news? And how many of these pictures of children and Santa Claus do these papers think we need to   _see_? " 

"They've gotta fill the space between the ads somehow." He finished his section and picked up the classifieds. "Speaking of ads...."  

They worked their way through the stack of newspapers. Nothing suspicious; Carter made the entry to the log, and they went back to their desks and to their own work. 

The phones stayed quiet. Sousa didn’t mind. He made plenty of progress on his work, and was just starting to think about dinner — too early? The agents usually ate together on the off shifts, would she mind that? — when he heard Carter rolling her chair back. 

“So when does the evening shift like to take dinner?” she asked.

They moved back to the briefing room. As they unwrapped their sandwiches and tucked in, they talked about work: the lack of hot cases at the moment, the indexing of years of reports on Hydra activity, the tedious day-to-day work …. 

Carter swallowed a bite of sandwich and delicately licked a crumb from her fingers. “Why was Agent Thompson so reluctant to leave this afternoon, do you think?” 

“Could've be any number of reasons, I guess.” Sousa looked away and fiddled with his sandwich wrapper. 

“Some more likely than others. There could have been a herd of wild hippopotamuses loose in the streets, for example, but I doubt it.” 

“True. NYPD would’ve called us,” said Sousa. "The dog catcher's off."

“There could have been someone he owed money to waiting outside to jump him. It seems unlikely, though; he didn’t appear nervous. So what’s your theory?” 

“Probably the same as yours.” 

“Maybe. You got here before I did, though, both this afternoon and to this office in general, so you might have information that I don’t have.” 

Sousa considered. If he told her, would it come back to bite him…? 

“It won’t hurt my feelings, I assure you,” she said. “I’m well aware of Agent Thompson’s low estimation of my abilities.” 

“I don’t think Thompson knew you were on the sub list for the evening shift — I didn’t know —” 

Carter nodded. “It’s fairly new. Chief Dooley finally relented.” 

“Ah. Congratulations. So when Fisher called in sick, Thompson didn’t know that you were first up on the sub list, and didn’t realize that Wallace had called you until you arrived.” 

“It really doesn’t take much to upset his apple-cart, does it?” 

“Not when he’s so busy polishing apples.” 

“Surely he must know that if you want to butter up the boss, you don’t go about it by niggling his smallest staffing decisions. Besides, it’s not as if I would be alone in the office.” 

“Well….” 

When he’d first come in that afternoon, he’d gone straight to the locker room to adjust his prosthetic. On his way out, he’d overheard Thompson arguing with Wallace in the hall: _“_ _…_ _the whole point of staffing the off shifts is to be ready for the unexpected. And if you’d used your_ ** _brain_** _, you’d have remembered that these are our two weakest agents. What happens if something comes up? For God's sake, neither one of 'em can change the bottle on the water cooler;_ _how are they going to defend themselves, much less each other?_ ” 

He’d been doing his best to ignore it, but Thompson’s voice was still ringing in his ears. 

“Thompson doesn’t exactly have a high opinion of my abilities either,” said Sousa. “I think he was concerned about our not being good backups for each other if things went south.” 

"Really!" Carter rolled her eyes. “Officious _git_.” 

Sousa kept his voice casual, though there was something about that eyeroll, about her scorn for the idea that he wouldn’t be able to back her up, that was cheering him up. “Well, I haven't exactly been in the field with him all that much.” 

“Something else we have in common,” said Carter.

Part of Sousa’s mind suggested asking her what else she thought they had in common.  Alarmed, he quickly smothered the idea and instead asked her a casual question about what she was working on.

After dinner, he went to the locker room to tend to his leg. The office was still standing when he returned, despite Thompson's fears. The rest of the shift passed quietly, and soon enough it was time to wrap up. Sousa had just started sorting his files when Carter called him.  “Agent Sousa?” 

She was on the other side of the room, up on the file ladder. “As long as I’m here, do you have anything for these top drawers?” 

“I’m not going to dump my filing on you.” 

“Precisely. That’s why I’m offering. Though I do have an ulterior motive; I’m also hoping you could hand up some of my files, so I don’t have to keep running up and down this ladder.” 

He stood at the bottom of the ladder, sorting and ordering her folders and his, handing some up to her and filing the others himself, all the while agreeing with her complaints about the state of the drawers and the tedium of the task. There was a lot to do — it looked like Carter had been putting off her filing for a while — but they fell into a comfortable rhythm. At one point, when he was handing up a folder, she grabbed at it without looking and her fingers swept over his. To his relief, she didn’t seem to notice. 

They tidied the coffee station and put their cups away, and suddenly the shift was ending and Li and Comden were coming in. They looked surprised to see Carter, but didn’t say anything, even when she gave report. 

“Any questions?” she asked. 

Comden shook his head. “I think we’re all set. Be careful going home, it’s miserable out there.” 

Sousa went back to his desk and started getting ready to go. He had brought a second crutch in case the sidewalks were slick, and he needed to adjust the cuffs on his crutches to go over the sleeves of his coat. As he shrugged on his coat, he noticed that Carter was bundled up and waiting for him. 

Well, that was good. Maybe they’d be able to get cabs quickly. He was buttoning his coat when he heard a great gulp of a bubble coming from the corner by the coffee station, the bubble that meant there was a new bottle on the water cooler.  Sousa looked up: Li was filling the percolator to make the first pot of coffee of the night. 

Come to think of it, the water bottle had been getting low earlier. But Li hadn’t changed the water bottle, and Sousa knew he himself hadn’t…. He looked up at Carter. She only smiled. “I asked the switchboard to call cabs. Are you ready?” she asked. 

“Yeah, let’s go.”  

They stepped in the elevator and Carter pressed the button for the switchboard level. “That was a very calm evening shift,” she remarked. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.” 

“I’ll vote for relieved,” Sousa replied. “Maybe the weather kept the bad guys indoors.” 

“Maybe. I’d hate for it to be that slow all the time.” 

“We got a lot done, though, even if it was just housekeeping.” 

“And just like housekeeping, we’ll get to do it all over again tomorrow.” The elevator stopped and the doors opened to the switchboard level. They greeted the two cover agents as they passed through to the second elevator. Carter pressed the button to the ground floor and then looked up at Sousa. “Are you on the evening shift tomorrow again?”

“Actually, no,” he replied. “I won’t be in tomorrow. I’m going out of town for Christmas, to see my family. I’ll be back on Friday.” 

“Oh. Do they live far?” 

“Near Boston.” 

“Well, I hope you have a lovely trip.” 

“Thanks. What about you, do you have plans for Christmas?” 

“I have an invitation.” 

An invitation, as opposed to actual plans. So was she going to accept it? Was she working Christmas, would she even be able to accept it? He realized how earnestly he hoped she would — so far away from her home, he hoped she had someplace to go. 

The elevator doors opened. Carter and Sousa headed through the dark lobby to the exit and out into the chilly night. They did not have to wait long before they saw the first cab approaching, its headlights revealing the return of falling snow.

“This one’s yours,” said Sousa. That meant a cab door to open; he glanced at the curb and the street to pick a path — hopefully there wasn't any ice....

Carter looked like she was going to put up a fight, but a second cab appeared behind the first. 

“Fine,” she said. “Have a good time with your family, but don’t stay away too long.” The cab pulled up; she stepped up to meet it, opened the door, and turned back to look him straight in the eye. “Happy Christmas, Daniel.” She almost smiled. Then she climbed in and closed the door.  

Her cab pulled away and the second cab pulled up. Sousa got himself and his crutches into the cab, gave the cabbie his address, and settled back to think. 

This time tomorrow, he’d be back home and it would be Christmas Eve, he'd be settling into a pew for Midnight Mass. 

And tonight…. it had been a good shift. He and Carter had worked well together — boy, she was smart — and they'd finally gotten that tottering pile of crap out of her to-file box, good, it really teed him off when some of the other agents tried to dump their filing on her, who did they think they were? she wasn't their secretary — 

— And he thought about Carter and her plans for Christmas, or at least her invitation. He hoped she'd accept it. Of course, if she'd said no, that she didn't have any plans, he could have always invited her — but where was this stupid idea coming from? He was going out of town, she couldn’t just pop all the way to Taunton and back for dinner — but if he could have invited her, he would have, his family would completely understand, you couldn't just leave someone alone on Christmas. It wouldn't be bringing home a girl to meet the family, it would be welcoming a colleague who was far from home and had no place to go, like bringing home an Army buddy: It would just be being friendly. That was all. 

Friendly: that was a change. There were people in the office that he respected, and people that he could put up with. But tonight… he thought of reading newspapers in the briefing room with Carter, batting a joke back and forth like a birdie over a badminton net. He thought of the way she'd turned back to say good-bye to him as she got into her cab, instead of just tossing a greeting over her shoulder. He thought of the way she’d looked him in the eye, the way she'd always looked him straight in the eye instead of furtively struggling to avoid looking at his leg or his crutch. She’d always said his name as if she was really speaking to him, instead of teasing him, and tonight she'd called him by his first name. This was new: there was someone in the office he sincerely liked. 

He _liked_ Peggy Carter. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @keysburg for the beta read, idea-bouncing, and help with the spy stuff
> 
> and to Annie+MacDonald for the read and for the Britpicking.


End file.
